The MBTA is starting to get out of hand with all of these "heightened security measures". I recently boarded a double-decker commuter rail coach and noticed that the trash receptacles at each end of this coach were sealed off and covered with a sign that read "Due to heightened security measures, this receptacle is out of service".

Remember, one of the biggest goals is to make people scared and live in a life full of fear............and by doing all of these non-sense things like sealing off trash receptacles on our trains, that is what they like to see.

News-flash for the genius @ the MBTA that suggested this, if a terrorist wants to leave a bomb on the train, and realizes that he/she cannot hide it in the trash receptacle, they'll just leave it somewhere else on the train if they really want to blow it up!!!!!

Hopefully we won't see anything like this happen here, but in the mean time, I am going to blame the MBTA for all of the extra trash that is on the floors of the trains, since it was their idea to seal-off the trash bins on the commuter rail coaches.

My only comment I want to add, is watching the No.2 operators on the Red Line, totally cleaning the cars after each trip of all newspapers and trash. I love grabbing an old Herald, but if you are on at the ends of the line, those messy cars are cleaned up...until they return to service on their next trip.

Here, here! I feel like I was alone in my oposition to the multi-million dollar purchase of trash cans after 9/11. It was absurd that the type of person who was willing to crash a plane into a building wouldn't be willing to blow themselves up in a train station.

Obviously extra precautions should be taken by all, but the extend to which the Bush government and now the MBTA have gone are ridiculous. The on train announcements are a perfect example. Operators on the Orange Line (and I'm guessing on all other lines as well) have been announcing to report unattended packages to T employees and to following the operators instructions in case of emergency, etc., etc. Well thank you Captain Obvious! Just to make sure that the slower riders get the point, they announce it in between every single freaking stop! This does nothing to promote awareness among riders, bores the hell out of the operators, annoys riders, and could even distract them from recognizing a legitimate threat. (I know the last one is a stretch.)

Several days ago I was on the Red Line train, going to Alewife. The guy who was sitting in front of me got off at Harvard. As the doors closed and the train moved, we spotted a plastic bag full of stuff, just under the seat where the guy had sat. The engineer just made an announcement about those 'forgotten objects'. Needless to say that everyone (including, I confess, myself) assumed the worst. The passengers looked at each other, as if asking for an advice. There was scare, uncertainty, and I would say, helplessness on their faces. Some passengers stood up and walked away from the package. As for me, I did not move (the rationale was very simple: if IT explodes in front of me, I just die; if IT explodes at the opposite end of the car, I will be handicapped for the rest of my life). Nobody reported the bag. When the train stopped at Porter, many passengers got off, but some stayed on board looking suspiciously at the bag. As we approached Alewife, it seemed as if the damned bag was all but forgotten by the remaining passengers...

What I don't understand is why they removed all the trash cans from outlying, and in many cases, open air stations on the Orange Line (I.E. Green and Roxbury Crossing) , but places like Back Bay and Downtown Crossing still have them. I would think that Roxbury Crossing wouldn't really be a prime target, whereas Back Bay would.

I wouldn't be quite so ticked about the T closing off the trash receptacles if they put the new type of trash cans on the platforms. They have very few at the station entrance, and those become mounds of trash by 9:00. If they're going to take the train and platform trash cans away, the least they could do is to frequently empty the ones they have left!

At the Fitchburg Station, they are all gone. At Leominster, they moved them across the tracks to the platform that is never used, because it lacks access(Unless you cross the tracks), and chained them to the fence. Now,everyone runs across the tracks to dispose of their trash.

The stupidity and paranoya in this nation is rteally starting to boil over.
Whatever happened to not letting them win and live life normally?? This is not normal, it is stupidity.

With all due respect, if one looks at the history of human civilization on this planet it is marked by the cyclical rise and fall of powerful empires. A common denominator of the latter was the complacency of the strong and the gathering resentment of the weak. It is becoming increasingly clear that ours is an empire on the decline, faced with the collective hatred of millions bent upon our destruction and solidified within the context of the supreme motivator, that being religion. If the greatest sacrifice you and I face is the removal of trash cans at our train stations then we ought to thank our lucky stars. For perspective review the homeland sacrifices made by our ancestors during the world wars. The MBTA is at least attempting to deal with the near certainty of future attacks on our transportation infrasctucture and deserves credit for doing so.